Bell Mobility’s parent company, BCE, today announced that it will acquire GLENTEL, a Canadian mobile products distributor. It may be more familar to you as WIRELESSWAVE and Tbooth wireless but it also provides retail management services for Costco Canada, Samsung Canada, and Target Canada. The deal, valued at approximately CA$670 million, is meant to enhance “Bell’s strategy to accelerate wireless and improve customer service in a competitive wireless marketplace.”
“GLENTEL is a remarkable Canadian success story, and over the past 25 years has been influential in driving the widespread adoption of mobile services in Canada, the United States and elsewhere internationally. As our longstanding partner, the GLENTEL team shares Bell’s commitment to wireless growth and service innovation, and we are proud to welcome them,” said George Cope, President and CEO of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada. “GLENTEL’s national reach, deep product knowledge, and great customer service and sales execution are key to our strategy to accelerate wireless.”
GLENTEL offers mobile products from a number of carriers including Bell Mobility, Chatr, Fido, Rogers Wireless, SaskTel and Virgin Mobile. It currently has no plans to focus exclusively on Bell and Virgin Mobile products and services. It remains to be seen if this strategy will change later on (in a move similar to what happened at The Source after its acquisition by Bell in 2009).
The acquisition, split evenly between cash and BCE common shares, is expected to close by the end of Q1 2015, subject to the usual closing conditions, including court, shareholder and competition approvals.
Source : BCE